YOUTH club bosses are fuming after being left with a clean-up bill for more than £2,000 after travellers set up home illegally on their playing fields.

Winnington Youth Club says it is desperate for help to pay off the bill, which includes paying for bailiffs, cleaning up the Winnington Avenue playing fields and improved security measures to keep groups of travellers off in future.

Northwich Town Council, which leases the fields and shares them with the club, is footing half of the bill but the youth club still has to stump up about £1,000.

Peter Bellis, chairman of Winnington Youth Club, said: 'It's going to take a lot of car boot sales to raise that much money, so we are looking for any donations.'

Bailiffs attended the encampment on Thursday with the Cheshire police's Gypsy liaison officer and members of North-wich Town Council.

Council chief executive Steve Sharman said: 'The fields were a real mess, they must have left about 60 tonnes of gravel, tarmac and broken flags from work they have been doing.

'After we moved the travellers off the site they went straight on to playing fields at Saxons Lane. Within minutes of them arriving at Saxons Lane the residents were up in arms about it. The police were in attendance and there were no problems, and we believe they have now left.'

The cost for the club is not only financial but also in terms of people's valuable time, with Mr Bellis estimating the clean-up will take hours.

He said: 'I was there for a couple of hours this week tidying up the football pitches. I had to move a church pew from the middle of the pitch. There is lots of rubble and tarmac dumped in the corner which will cost a lot of time and money to move.'

He estimated it has cost about £1,500 for bailiffs to move the travellers on, £500 for cleaning the fields, and more on top to increase security.

He said: 'We are going to put some posts in and dig out the embankment that they can get down. The problem is keeping them off - because if they want to get on they will do, we can only deter them.

'We have taken temporary measures, but we will do something more permanent.'

Members of the local football community say they are glad to have got their pitches back.

Tony Smith, a coach with Mid Cheshire Youth League side Winnington Avenue Under 16s, said his side had been made homeless for three weeks, missing out on pre-season training and finding there were few alternative sites in the district.

He said: 'We have had quite a warm summer so the pitches probably only have limited damage, but the mess they left behind was shocking, with bags of rubbish everywhere. Who makes good the repairs that are needed, and who clears up the mess?

'Pitches in Mid Cheshire are hard to come by and there's not a lot for kids aged 15 or 16 to do around here, so when we lose our pitches it makes things harder.'

* Anybody interested in helping Winnington Youth Club financially can contact the Chronicle on 01606 42272.